An Archive of Virginia Indian Heritage

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tagged "Monacan" (1 total)

This exhibit revolves around a series of interviews conducted in 2006 with various Virginia Indian artists and performers, most of whom later participated in the Smithsonian Museum's National Folklife Festival in Washington, DC, in 2007.

Among the Virginia Indian tribes, several traditional cultural forms are still practiced, and new traditions have developed as well. A few artists make their living solely from their art; generally speaking, however, these practices are a part-time endeavor. Tribal artists are involved in beadwork, leather crafting, wood carving, pottery, and basket weaving. Tribal dancing has continued as a tradition, and the Virginia Indians practice not only their own traditional dances, such as the Green Corn Dance and the Canoe Dance, but they also participate in intertribal contemporary powwow dancing as well.

Featured Item

This engraving, taken from life, shows an American Indian man wearing a necklace, earrings, and head ornaments. The inscription in the upper left reads, "Unus Americanus ex Virginia" (an American from Virginia), a place name that early in the seventeenth century referred to much of both present-day Virginia and New England. In 1996, the scholar George R. Hamell identified the man as Jacques, an…